Stonex Self-Hardening Clay, 5 Pounds

I bought this for my son to start sculpting. It works. He didn't last and it didn't cost me a fortune. It does work well though.

Just arrived, looks great and in perfect condition. I was worried because of some other reviews but no mold or cracks here.

I used this as ballast for the bottom of two lamps, one a table reading lamp, and a floor lamp. The inner base plaster on both had cracked and crumbled apart. Even expensive lamps these days have plaster instead of the heavy iron insert they used to have. With age, or if you knock them over, the plaster falls apart like sand and you have a lamp that cannot stand. Not wanting to throw away very nice lamps, I tried this clay. A YouTube video suggested using quikcrete cement, but then you have to pour it over the lamp cord. This clay is moldable so you can keep a channel for the cord. I smoothed it flat with a metal ruler, which was easy to clean while the clay was wet. This clay does shrink some from the lamp base sides (the box warns you that it will do that), but fortunately stuck to the top of both lamp bases. I filled in the edge cracks where it had shrunk with a glue gun and used that glue to re-attach the paper-and-felt bottom as well. Both lamps are perfect again.

I had not used this type of air dry clay before, and at first found it hard and dry to work with. Stick with it. The clay formed easily and took imprinting easily with sharp clear images. The dried weight was substantial yet still light. Very satisfied using it as the main structure medium.

Made a mold for a wolf print. Real one made out plaster Paris. It's the brown pic in the new mold holder made out coffee card board can 2 inchs tall Had to water the new clay down to get the old mold pushed in. Removed it and used spoons and other thing's to get the detail better as the old print had no definition. Clay all over me clothes hands. Get a small pail and water and towel. Paper towels. After I cut off what I needed I usedsaran wrap. And last old bread bag tied and cut off so it won't dry out. Probably be many days drying by heater duct.Funny couldn't load second pic of my new mold. Will edit it put the second pic in of my mold. Still can't get the second pic to load even under edit

Great practice clay for leaning how to use a pottery wheel it's affordable and isn't hard to work with.However the amount of water you use when throwing should be limited. If you don't you'll lose more then you will gain and the clay will turn into mush and then you'll be stuck waiting a day for it to dry before you can continue using the clay and the more you have to repeat that process the less clay you'll have left.I'm sure this goes for most clays but with this particular brand it was a bigger struggle. Airdry isn't known to be the best for pottery wheels either, but it gets a person started and you won't need a kilm. People will tell you, you can't use this clay for pottery wheels you CAN. But you just can't!!! eat or drink form it. and you have to make things for storage more then anything else. But you should be fine. I do prefer other brands but for what this is attempting to achieve it isn't bad. There's a lot of mention of cracking (kneed it look up kneading clay) that's why it's cracking.

I wasn't sure this was going to work for the kids in our arts based vacation bible school. We used the clay to make oil lamps in the style of ancient Israel. They clay feels and works like a regular clay, you can add water, roll it, pinch it, smooth it out, but it air drys into a very sturdy clay body (it took two days to dry completely). I dropped mine on concrete on purpose several times and it didn't crack. Also, when we put oil in it to burn, the oil didn't seep through the clay, much to my surprise, which it would have done with regular low fired clay! Pretty amazing stuff, I recommend it highly. The kids loved this project. One box was more than enough to make a dozen small lamps.

This clay is certainly self hardening. It arrived at my doorstep literally as hard as a rock.